Anime Underground 15 Romance Anime Tropes You're Just Tired Of Seeing

List Rules Vote up the recurring themes in romance anime that you find exhausting.

The best romance anime can be a window into a nearly universal experience: love. The shows that get you emotionally invested in the characters keep you glued to the screen as you experience the highs and lows of their relationship and emotional lives. Unfortunately, many series rely heavily on romance anime tropes to achieve better ratings and engagement. And while tropes in romance anime can help unify the genre and make it recognizable, they can also get really boring and stale.

Some of the stuff you see in every romance anime, like the complete absence of LGBTQ people and the fact that anime characters often interpret rejection as a sign to keep pushing until they get the romantic or sexual relationship they want, are not only dull, but actively harmful. Even if you're a casual fan, you probably know at least a few of these recurring themes in romance anime. Check out this list and vote up the romantic tropes you're sick of seeing.

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Easily Resolvable Misunderstandings Drive The Plot

Misunderstandings are a huge part of romance anime. Sometimes, they can be kind of fun. For example, in Gekkan Shojo Nozaki-kun, which is based entirely on a misunderstanding, Chiyo tries to confess her feelings to Nozaki, and he interprets her feelings as a desire to help edit his professional shojo manga.

However, there are times when misunderstandings are super annoying, like in Masamune-kun's Revenge when Aki becomes furious because another girl hugs Masamune, and she won't take five seconds to let him explain that he's never met her and doesn't know why she's hugging him. Another example is Kimi ni Todoke, where almost all of the progress made in Sawako and Kazehaya's relationship gets canceled out by contrived rumors. Handled right, this can be an interesting wrench in the proceedings, but handled wrong, it's just plain frustrating and drags the show along a bed of nails.

Physical Assault Is Totally Cool If If The Victim Is A Dude

If you've watched any anime ever, you've probably seen a girl punch a dude across the room for offenses ranging from accidently walking in on her naked to refusing to be her boyfriend. While this is usually played for laughs, the violence can sometimes be extreme. For example, in Urusei Yatsura, Lum does more than just smack Ataru around for hitting on other women - she electrocutes him. Yikes. This isn't exclusive to older anime, either. Noragami, an anime that aired in 2014, features a guy getting hit so hard that he's actually still in pain the next day.

The reason why anime women are rarely on the receiving end of slapstick violence is because there are too many uncomfortable parallels to actual domestic abuse that exists in society. That said, according to some studies, up to 40% of domestic abuse victims are men. With that in mind, watching a dude get punched across the room for a minor offense isn't all that funny.

Yanderes Make Stalking Seem Predictable

Similar the tsundere, the yandere is another character archetype that appears frequently in romance anime. Yanderes appear to be sweet and loving on the outside, but on the inside, they're clingy, obsessive, jealous, and potentially murderous. One of the earliest examples of the trope is Kaede Fuyou from Shuffle!, who dedicates her daily life to cooking and cleaning for her childhood friend, but gets threatening with any girl she sees talking to him. There's also Kotonoha Katsura from School Days, who cuts off her boyfriend's head in response to his philandering, then cuddles said severed head as if it's an adorable puppy.

The whole yandere thing can get really dark, really quick. This archetype can be an interesting way to add some spice to a sugary romance. That said, some of the suspense disappears when you know that every girl who's a little clingy is going to end up as an axe murderer.

In Romance Anime, Rejection Means Keep Trying

One of the most irritating tropes that crops up in romance anime is the fact that when characters get rejected, they just keep trying until they get what they want. Sometimes, this is the whole story - like in My Little Monster, where Shizuku and Haru reject each other approximately ten billion times, and their friend actually yells at Haru for not ignoring Shizuku's blatant refusal to date him. In Kaichou wa Maid-sama, Takumi stalks, blackmails, and harasses Misaki in a bid to get closer to him.

In the real world, if someone rejects your advances, you're supposed to accept it gracefully and move on with your life, not keep bothering them until they finally give up in frustration. If you keep bothering them, you're not seen as a romantic person - you're seen as a freak and a stalker. When a fictional romance starts off with one person not respecting the other person's boundaries, thoughts, or feelings, it can be hard to get invested in the characters.